My main aim at Liskeard is trying to highlight the girls’ game in the area, to make sure people know that it is a growing sport and that the girls can be proud to say that they play football.
I am always thinking of different ways we can highlight the sport. We managed to get on the front page of the local paper after our end of season presentation, which we held at a local Golf and Country Club in the presence of our new President, MP Sheryll Murray. This summer we have shot a professional promotional video which is currently in the editing stages and we still have many more plans and ideas that we are working on.
I think promotion is something that needs to be done consistently to keep the sport in the public eye, you can’t just have one splash and then not do anything for the rest of the year. Not only does promotion need to be consistent to get attention, you need to think outside of the box as well. For the papers and press to pick up stories and to highlight them, it has to be different from the usual sport stories and reports they get.
Boys’ teams don’t need to promote themselves as hard as girls’ teams, as they have a bigger audience to recruit players from, volunteers from, sponsors from, etc. But I think there are more angles you can use to promote girls’ football, as it is different and something which newspapers don’t get as many stories about, so are more likely to feature. So I think there are lots of reasons to be positive about it.
I think volunteers in girls’ football have a different calling to those in boys’ football. I think it is all of our responsibilities to help grow the game and not just our teams and we have to work harder to keep teams going and recruit players. I have coached boys’ and girls’ football and although at times girls’ football is harder, it is so much more rewarding.
Before I go this week, I need to ask the lovely readers of SheKicks and the female football community a huge favour: My club Liskeard Girls FC has been placed in the top ten shortlist for overall Club of the Year at the Cornwall Sports Awards which is going to be decided by a public vote.
The girls really deserve the recognition of an accolade like this as they are great ambassadors for the female game. So it would mean the world to me if you could vote for our club.
To vote for us you need to do the following:
Send a text to: 65100
And this is what you need to put in the text: DC SPORTS 1005 YOUR NAME YOUR POSTCODE
So for example, for me I would text: DC SPORTS 1005 ADAM SIBLEY PL14 5RR
text cost 50p + your standard network rate
Thanks for your support.
She Kicks – the online community for women’s football
